Search This Blog

The Past Made New: Futurama and Middle English

Futurama has always been one of my favorite
shows, if not my favorite. Its witty brand of humor which mixes intellect and wacky
adventure has tickled my funny bone for years. Recently, however, as I have
been studying the basics of Middle English, I am remembered of an aspect of the
show which I never thought a whole lot of—its use of language.

In
episode 204, “Xmas Story,” the Planet Express delivery crew finds their lives
in jeopardy from a murderous mechanical Santa. Scary stuff, right? Also
interesting—robotic Santa which thirsts for your doom? Yup, but you know what
is more interesting? The sly lingual game playing in the background of this
episode.

Let
me explain: early in the episode, after our titular heroes have gone skiing and
are relaxing by the fire, Fry remarks “it really puts you in the Christmas
spirit.” His friends and co-workers are baffled and it is not until Fry spells
it out “X.M.Y.S” that they understand that by Christmas he means what they know
as X-Mas. Leela remarks, “Oh, you must be using an archaic pronunciation, like
when you say ‘ask’ instead of ‘ax.’” Needless to say, as someone studying
Middle English, I now find this hilarious (or, at least amusing).

In
his pamphlet, Peter G. Beidler remarks that “our word ‘ask’ derives from the
Middle English axen, a pronunciation now considered in some circles to be
substandard: ‘I want to ax you a question’” (19, A Student’s Guide to Chaucer’s Middle English). So, let’s now consider
the fact that Futurama is set in the year 3000 (A.D). What are to make of the
fact that the denizens of this period denote ‘ask’ as an archaic pronunciation
while ‘ax,’ the Middle English word, is the standard?

Well,
aside from the pro-secular stance on the use of X-Mas instead of the Christian ‘Christmas,’
this is an instance of temporal looping.

In
our time, it is ‘ax’ which is considered archaic, not ‘ask.’ But, a thousand
years in the future, it is considered the norm—so it is a reverse of our
present time; what is archaic to us is modern to the future, and so our modern
is archaic to the future, with the past archaic now non-archaic. Typically,
language changes over time and words are gradually morphed into new words with
new, or altered, meanings. This is the case in our present with ‘ask’: it
started as ‘ax’ and then morphed into ‘ask.’ It has the same basic pronunciation,
and even, to a degree, the spelling (it remains fairly short). But in Futurama
we have seen the opposite: instead of changing into a new spelling and pronunciation,
the word has reversed, degenerated, into an older form.

Why
did this happen? Hard to say. In the Futurama universe there is many absurd
happenings. But the general consensus is that of a loss of historical memory. What
was in the past is lost and only survives as bits and pieces, and so medieval
life and culture has taken on new shape but a shape divorced from the wider
linguistic legacy. This would allow for the reversal of linguistic change, a
faux shift.

Or it could be
much deeper or a mere fun alteration on the part of the writing staff. Who
knows! The point is, I found it greatly amusing now that I am studying Middle
English and will be sure to keep my eyes open for any other such references, in
Futurama or otherwise.

Popular Posts

Lately, I was browsing around online and found another handy resource for aspiring medievalists.

Enter, Western Michigan University's Medieval Institute!

The site has links to an extensive book shop, scholarly journals, as well as a free download. See below for links.

General listing: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medievalpress/
Index of titles available for purchase: http://www.wmich.edu/medievalpublications/all-titles
The 'Medieval Globe' book(s): http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/ (Click on title(s) for free download)

Okay, that is all for now. Sometime soon I think that I would like to organize all of my resource links so that I, as well as you, have a concrete listing of reliable resources. Until then, we shall have to make due.